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What a difference a week makes! The weather was so nice last weekend, that it was time to take care of some outdoor chores. My electric net fence wasn’t working too well….I wonder why?
Since I was having to take the fence down to clean up the leaves, I figured I may as well move it over to the other side of the regular pasture.
I stepped outside to this (Sunday AM)
Goats typically do the single-file thing, but now with snow so deep (and legs so short!), it becomes more of a necessity
Every year the fiber farmer worries about the crop and when to harvest. It’s a delicate dance between weather, quality and animal comfort. Shear too soon and you won’t get full length locks with all the characteristic style and finish. If you hold off too long you risk having it felt on the animal, rendering it useless for processing or handspinning, and an uncomfortable coat for the animal to continue to wear as it pulls at the skin.
Other times the weather turns so cold I just don’t have the heart to cut it off and risk a dangerous chilling. Some of my girls are getting quite old so their comfort and safety is important to me. If the weather is fairly mild, shearing won’t bother them as they’ll have some time to re-acclimate and have their metabolic rates adjust accordingly. It’s during this time that I feed more hay to keep their rumens working and generating some heat for them.
Because of our hectic work lives, Terry and I often don’t get to take a really close look at our goats until the weekends, and as a result we sometimes have to make decisions to act quickly and do something that had not been planned in advance.
Such is the case of last Sunday. The weather was warm although rainy and humid. Mid morning Terry called me to have a friendly chat about something to do with our little fiber business. Then I happened to mention that after taking a close look at my goats the day before, I decided that I had to get busy and get a couple of goats sheared quickly while their fiber was still so nice. I also mentioned that there were at least 6-7 others that really could be done but that they might have to wait…”Gosh, I hope I don’t lose the fleece off the others ’cause I won’t be able to do any more until next weekend.”
After hearing my lament, Terry quickly responded with “I can come over to help you this morning if you want” and she even said it in her happy voice. I didn’t even hear a hint of reluctance on her part and I really did listen for it. OH, JOY! Someone to share the pain and dirt! Someone to talk to while I work! Within an hour she had driven the 25 miles to my place, magically appearing with her clippers and her goat stand, a smile on her face, graciously offering to spend several hours with me on one of her days off! Now, if that’s not a true friend, I don’t know what is.
Now, mind you, shearing is one of my least favorite chores. Not only do you get hot and sticky but you get covered in short bits of hair that quickly penetrates your clothing, causing some pretty intense itching, sometimes in unmentionable places. Invariably your nose runs profusely and wiping at it just seems to distribute more hair, which in turns leads to even more itching. Usually my goats are easy to catch, but when they see the shears come out they make themselves scarce. Terry and I aren’t getting any younger and catching uncooeprative goats and wrestling them through a gate and into a stand is darn hard work. But after a few hours we had all nine sheared, fleeces boxed, feet trimmed, deworming injection administered and lice powder applied!
So, as you can imagine based on the description of our activities above, we’re not fashion mavens either. We don our fat farmer clothes which tend to consist of sweats and old T-shirts. In addition, we don’t bother with our hair or makeup beause we’ll just sweat it off. Check out this link: http://www.hmrpygoras.com/ This is the website for our good friend Lisa Roskopf of Hawks Mountain Ranch Pygoras. There’s a great photo of Sarah, her friend and barn helper, shearing one of Lisa’s Pygora does. Obviously we all share the same taste in shearing attire!
Terry and I finished our afternoon of shearing by sorting through some lovely boxes of fiber and prepared them for shipment to the mill (read that to mean we stuffed, jumped on and wrestled a huge amount of fiber into the smallest box we could in an attempt to hold down shipping costs). Then we toasted our efforts with a glass of Merlot and some good cheese and dreamed of the lovely yarn we’re sure will result from the fiber we had just harvested.
All-in-all it was a good day made even better because of the company and help of a dear and good friend!
I finally managed to get the website updated today….and I have a cute cat story!
My cat Shadow was rolling in the garden this morning - it had rained and he was covered with wet dirt clods. I wondered why he was rolling about, I figured he had another mouse ….(please overlook all the weeds in our garden!!!)
Then I spied the object of their interest …. a sprout of catnip! The funny thing is, I had a huge plot of it years ago and the cats I had at the time couldn’t have cared less about it. When we got rid of a small raised garden, I thought the catnip had all gone away. I know it’s weed-like and difficult to get rid of….well, that is apparently true as it’s still growing in my garden!
And it would seem both of my cats really LOVE it…and they’re not into sharing….
Shadow-cat had a near miss in the goat pasture last night. I had one this morning. Walking across the pasture to the barn isn’t terribly safe at the moment. Even the goats are upset!
What is all the commotion? The barn swallows have hatched little ones and the feeding patrols have begun in earnest. And they don’t LIKE any of us (goats included) anywhere near their little precious bundles. I must admit it was quite a sight for a tiny barn swallow to dive-bomb Shadow - scared the buggers out of him - he jumped straight up - then ran flat out for the garage.
Our poor blog has been so neglected of late. Nothing fun to write about, I guess…both our places of employment are rapidly (and painfully) downsizing. Will spare you the gory details -
And I hear it’s horribly boring to type about the weather in a blog - so will skip the 10 inches of snow we had on Saturday. Ugh, I am so ready for spring!
We have been busy carding up more new blends for this year’s shows. That continues to be a bright spot in our lives - that and our dear little goaties! The Spring Fiber Sale at Abernethy Grange was great fun - that venue has continued to grow each year.
I will leave you with cute photo - I couldn’t find the cats tonight when I checked on them in the garage. We lock them in at night. So I went looking for them - it’s supposed to get below freezing again tonight and apparently they both knew that - they were found snug inside a large box of fiber for our guild. They look a bit cranky that I disturbed them……ha!
I’m sure you all think I’ve dropped off the face of the earth since I haven’t added to this blog for a long time. But the truth is I’ve just been overwhelmed at work and seem to have such limited hours to devote to the other things in my life.
Just wanted to make a quick comment about shearing as I’ve been faced with the same shearing challenges as Terry and Laura Ableman. This winter has been very difficult for fiber goats. They won’t stand out in the rain or snow (which is a good thing!) preferring to hang out in the barn and, although they stay somewhat drier and cleaner, they tend to get a bit cranky and push and shove each other around in an attempt to stave off boredom. This results in a lot of friction between bodies and, as any fiber person knows, friction plus a little bit of moisture equals FELT! Big, huge, hard, dirty balls and clumps of FELT. I have numerous feeding stations set up in an attempt to minimize the friction.
There are years where it is just about impossible to harvest a decent fleece off most of your animals and then there are years when every goats’ fleece looks wonderful. This is NOT one of those years. Every goat I’ve sheared thus far this month is having a really bad hair day. I only took off the good parts, leaving their bellies, legs, rear ends and chest area still covered to keep them a bit warmer. Yesterday, Sunday, one doe did look quite lovely so I removed all of her useable fleece. But wouldn’t you know it, last night it was clear and dang COLD – 26 degrees this morning when I walked down to the barn at 3:30am. Brrr.
Sure enough, Jasmine was laying in the corner shivering a little. I called her name and she came quickly, knowing I felt sorry for her and that she was going to get a bowl full of grain. While she was munching away in the stand, I located by box of goat coats and pulled out one that would fit her perfectly. I purchased my goat coats from Mary Lannen. Mary used to own Pygmy goats but more recently has had dairy breeds. She has a little home based business called “Gotcha Covered” and she makes the best darn goat coats, hay bags, collars and show leads, and she’ll ship them any where. Over the years I’ve ordered all of these products from her. Here’s a link to her business – I highly recommend her:
http://www.gotcha-covered.net/
Jasmine doesn’t mind having the coat on at all. In fact her shivering stopped almost immediately. So today she’s the best dressed goat out in the pasture in her fleece lined purple coat. In a pinch, if a goat get really cold, I put them in a stall thickly bedded with straw and may add a heat lamp. Yes, I know, heat lamps can be very dangerous and I do my best to be careful with how I set it up. Premier 1 Supplies has the best new heat lamp I’ve seen. It’s made in
http://www.premier1supplies.com/detail.php?prod_id=18266&criteria=heat+lamp
Susan
Our poor blog has been sadly neglected - time for an update!
Chip’s winter 2007 fleece!
This is the first year since we’ve lived up on top of this hill (been here almost 20 yrs) that snow has covered the ground from Christmas until early February (still have tiny patches here and there). I walked outside Saturday morning to sunshine, birds chirping, and I could see my grass again! Gosh, it felt like spring and I surprised myself at how happy that truly made me feel.
Everyone has cabin fever - I opened up the electric pasture and the goats ran, full-on from one pasture to the other. They were quite fun to watch. Poor things had been cooped up in the barn for far too long. Yes, we all felt rather elated to be free of that wicked white snow.
With the weather forcasting 40’s and 50’s I knew it was time - time to shear the boys. I’ve NEVER sheared this late - ever. Many newer Pygora goat owners question the timing of when to shear. It’s difficult to call each year - you want to capture those fleeces before they’re ruined (they will felt right on the goat), but you don’t want the goats to freeze, either. I have some thrift store felted wool sweaters at the ready, should the temps dip too low after shearing.
Buckwheat’s winter 2007 fleece - yum!
This time of year I usually end up doing a two-stage shearing job. I’m not the best shearer and don’t want the animal to be tortured by my lack of skill and grace, so step 1 is a shear job that collects all the useable fleece. Then they get a pedicure (heh) and a nice dusting of lice powder. I leave much of the belly, leg, and hind quarter fleece on them - I will collect the hind quarter fleece if it’s nice, but that part seems to felt up earlier than the rest of the body. The following weekend, off comes the belly and leg fleece. In the summer, I shear all at once - and can sometimes do that in the winter. Not this year - we have a wonderful harvest of Pygora fiber - definately more fleece per goat. - maybe all that cold weather and snow was worth it?
Diamond’s winter 2007 fleece